Transcript: Week Five of Lent: This is the Way Back to God

Music.

Welcome to the fifth week of Lentz. As we find ourselves at this chapter of a journey, I’d like to maybe start today a little differently than we have in the past and share my heart with you. Because I think that as we linger in our hearts long enough, we’re all gonna find things there that you might say are buried or that may have been hidden from us. I just returned from my own experience of retreat, and when I was on retreat, I was surprised to find a fear. I was, uh, I was surprised to find a lie inside my heart – that God loves me when I’m doing really, really well, when I’m exercising virtue and I’m impressing him, right? But that God doesn’t love me as much whenever I’m struggling or when I’m failing.

I was surprised too, but not surprised that that lie was there. But the Lord’s gentle mercy in revealing the pattern to me and then his love and mercy in revealing the roots…I was brought back to some times in my life where I just, I guess, picked up this way of thinking and living and acting with the Lord. And his love and mercy was profound at that stage in my life.

I share that with you because I think that if we stay in our hearts and trust a process long enough, maybe you have discovered things about yourself that have been buried inside your heart. No more beautiful time for us to talk about this than right now. We just talked about the gospel of Lazarus on Sunday of the fifth week of Lent, and it’s there that we found Lazarus in the tomb. And in the tomb, Lazarus is bound with the burial cloths. And as Jesus shows up, as he enters into the scene, as he takes command, his desire is to liberate Lazarus. I love the words as he says, “Unbind him.” There are things that were binding Lazarus that were buried, and Jesus wants him to be unbound as he comes out of the tomb.

I want us to notice that Jesus – as he arrives in Bethany – it is Jesus and his words that actually bring freedom and life to Lazarus. Lazarus could not unbind himself. Lazarus could not exit the tomb on his own. It actually was Jesus, his action, right? Lazarus needed Jesus to do it. And every one of us needs God to bring freedom to unbind us.

Music.

And I’d like to have an adult conversation about the sacrament of reconciliation – the way that Jesus has designed us to experience freedom from the things that bind us. Now I know that for many of us, as you hear me mention the words “the sacrament of reconciliation,” you may have questions about where that is in the Bible or why do you have to confess to a Catholic priest? And those are the things that rise in your hearts. I want to give you permission to have the questions and encourage you to find the answers, because it’s right there in the Bible. And there’s lots of resources that can help you. But I think for many of us there might be a variety of things that might help us at this stage of the process. And that is what I want to maybe kind of unpack with you today.

First, I want to encourage all of us, if possible, to make a general confession. Now let me share with you a little bit what a general confession is, and just give you a story from my own life. A general confession comes out of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. It’s in the tradition of the church, and it’s where you might confess all of the sins of your life around a particular pattern – not necessarily to receive absolution if you’ve confessed them before, but to receive God’s mercy that is available to you in the sacrament of reconciliation. When I was on my retreat, at the end of the retreat, after God had revealed His mercy and compassion in the lie and the fear of my life that I have to impress Him, He then revealed to me all of the sins that I’ve committed in my life because of that fear – the ways that I hide from Him, the ways that I grasped by trying to get attention, or try to, you might say, medicate the ache of being afraid of Him. So at the end of the retreat I confessed all of those sins for my entire life that were connected to that lie. I’d been absolved of those sins in different stages of my life, but by taking it to a general confession, it allowed me to receive God’s mercy in a beautiful way.

So the first thing that can encourage us today is maybe for some of us making a general confession about the things that have bound you that God has revealed to you during the journey together. The second thing that I’d like to talk about today in regards to confession is just the emotions in our heart when it comes to confessing. For some of us, maybe you are – you’re planning on going to confession to your pastor or to a priest. You know? And there can be a fear in our hearts that if I share my sins with a particular priest, that he might look at me differently. And if I can just share my heart with you as one who hears a lot of confessions – there is a grace given to priests in the sacrament of reconciliation. I just forget what people say to me. And if you’re worried about maybe priests looking at you differently or maybe feeling a sense of judgment, just know that that’s not coming from God and it’s not coming from the priest. So I don’t want you to be afraid of how a priest is going to look at you, because there’s a joy in our heart inside the sacrament to watch God move in people’s lives.

So the second thing I just want to encourage you with today is – not to be afraid of what the priest might think. And number three, for some of us, maybe it’s just been a long time since you’ve been to the sacrament of reconciliation, and you don’t know what to do. And if that’s where you are, I just want to love you and encourage you and say the first thing that you should do when you go to confession is say, “Bless me Father for I have sinned. I don’t know what to do.” And the priest is going to take it from there. Showing up is the most important thing. And if you can just let the priest know that you need help, then he is there to help you – not only with the freedom, but the way and the words that you might need to actually taste that freedom.

Now here’s the good news – the good news is that in the companion that we have shared with you, I’ve written some specific meditations to help us get ready to actually share our hearts with the Lord in the sacrament of reconciliation. There’s some coaching on how to make a general confession. There’s some coaching on the sacrament of reconciliation. And there’s some words of encouragement – what to do if you don’t know what to do. You can find all that in the companion, in the journal. And I pray that your time of preparing for the sacrament of reconciliation is filled with grace.

Jesus Christ brought freedom to Lazarus, and he wants to bring freedom to you. Look – we’re never gonna get this opportunity again. We’re never gonna be where we are now at this stage of your life. And if you’ve been wondering about going to confession and maybe looking for a sign from God, well this is it. He’s speaking to you right now, and he’s inviting you into an ancient sacrament of mercy. He’s inviting you into the sacrament of reconciliation – for compassion today, over the next several days, at this stage of Lent and at this stage of your life. God is longing to give you more. God is longing to give you freedom.

God bless you.